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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131282">99 levels (and you owe me one)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura'>misura</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Gen, MMORPGs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:27:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Never mind that the real Gideon Nav lived on junk food, dirty magazines and her burning hatred for She Who Must Be Named Harrow And Then Cursed Roundly For Being a Total Bitch; in the game, Gideon was, not to put too fine a point on it, amazingly awesome, and she knew it. (AU)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide Madness 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>99 levels (and you owe me one)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/gifts">gamerfic</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After three months of intense leveling up and defeating an amount of level 1 mushrooms that was frankly ridiculous, Gideon Nav had at last managed to achieve the 99th level of swordswomanship she had coveted even more than the limited edition issue of <i>Frontline Titties of the Fifth House</i>.</p><p>It was commonly agreed to be an impressive achievement, worthy of respect, if only for the digital spirits of the small army of bereaved mushroom parents that now followed Gideon wherever she went. (Not having expended a single XP on her necromancy, Gideon herself remained blissfully unaware of her ghostly stalkers, though she had found herself oddly reluctant to eat anything with fungi recently.)</p><p>Gideon quite enjoyed being a 99th level swordswoman. She took great joy in the thought that somewhere in a small office, someone was desperately trying to come up with the sort of Even More Cool Shit her character would be able to do once she reached the currently not yet existing 100th level.</p><p>Never mind that the real Gideon Nav lived on junk food, dirty magazines and her burning hatred for She Who Must Be Named Harrow And Then Cursed Roundly For Being a Total Bitch; in the game, Gideon was, not to put too fine a point on it, amazingly awesome, and she knew it.</p><p>She also knew that she was about to die, which sucked.</p><p>Worse: she was about to die while in the company of her nemesis. That Harrow herself was in much the same position offered cold comfort at best: of all people Gideon might have felt sort of okay dying with, Harrow easily made the bottom of the list.</p><p>Mostly, this was because unlike Gideon, Harrow had, in fact, expended more than a single XP on necromancy.</p><p>In the short term, this would be useless, as being a necromancer meant you needed something (or not to put too fine a point on it: some<i>one</i>) dead to work with, and at present, no one had died yet.</p><p>Proverbial death was all around them (and if Gideon ever met the mod who'd thought up the 'random teleport to the location of someone you hate while you could have read about their death on a forum while eating ice cream' trap, she'd have words for them and also a hands-on demonstration of the sort of cool shit a 99th level swordswoman could do).</p><p>Actual, useful death was, alas, in somewhat shorter supply.</p><p>"While I'm painfully aware you haven't spent any XP on intelligence, may I propose a team-up?" Harrow said, sounding like this was a normal, sensible thing to say, said by a normal, sensible person.</p><p>Gideon allowed herself to toy with the idea that this was Alternate Harrow. Mirrorverse Harrow. Out of character Harrow. She fantasized about the real Harrow watching this from somewhere and dying of shock as Gideon teamed up with her twin, won a badass fight and celebrated by making sweet, sweet love to someone who admittedly looked like a cross between a vampire who'd forgotten to be sexy or at least sparkle a little and a Goth chick who'd forgotten how to people.</p><p>In this happy spirit she said, "Any chance you'd add some groveling to that?"</p><p>Harrow sneered. If sneering had been a skill, Harrow would have been a 99th level sneerer, and Gideon would have felt free to make fun of her for pumping XP into something that was, let's face it, kind of useless.</p><p>"Hey, it was worth a try." Gideon considered her options. Not Dying sounded like a good one.</p><p>"You're a 99th level swordswoman. I'm a 101st level necromancer. If we work together, we can get out of here alive, XP and equipment intact, and never speak of this again."</p><p>"They - that's cheating!" Gideon said, who complained as much about the mod team as anyone but who was also still possessed of the conviction that on some level deep down inside, mods were in fact people much like Gideon herself, except with a slightly cooler day job. "101st level?"</p><p>"There was an announcement," Harrow said, swapping out her sneering face for an expression of boredom. "It's hardly my fault if you don't keep up with the forums, Griddle."</p><p>"I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and there hasn't been any bubblegum in this game in forever," said Gideon.</p><p>Harrow went back to sneering. Gideon was indifferent; any expression on Harrow's face made her want to punch it. Proverbial death politely waited for their chat window to close.</p><p>Gideon almost ended the conversation as a matter of principle, but, well. The prospect of losing half her XP and half her gold and probably also that really cool sword she'd picked up just the other day, because randomized equipment discard, her ass, appealed slightly less than putting up with Harrow for, what, five minutes? Ten, tops.</p><p>She'd put on a mixtape and treat herself to some T&amp;J ice cream after, and then tomorrow morning, this would all seem like a bad dream. She could do this. She was Gideon Nav, 99th level swordswoman, and if she wasn't soon going to be able to call herself Gideon Nav, 101st level swordswoman, she'd send a sternly worded letter to God himself.</p><p>She said, "Fine. A team up. Just remember, you asked, so I get first pick of the loot."</p><p>"Fine, whatever," said Harrow, bored again. It had been speculated, by lesser minds than Gideon's, that Harrow's avatar was defective in some way, that Harrow's high-level necromancy had caused a glitch robbing her of the ability to express other emotions.</p><p>Gideon treated this idea the same way she treated the notion that beating up low-level mushrooms might for easy XP to get high-level enough to fight actually interesting stuff might one day come back to bite her in the ass. "Please. Your girlish enthusiasm is embarrassing."</p><p>"Oh, Griddle. Only think. This might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."</p><p>Gideon briefly considered stabbing Harrow. It would be easy - in theory. There was nothing Harrow could do to stop her - in theory. There was zero chance such an act would result in Gideon ending up Harrow's meat puppet and becoming an overnight internet sensation with her rendition of the Hunny Hunny Cutie dance routine shared all over Thimble, AvatarBook and DreamBroad - in extra theoretical theory, given the amount of pop culture involved.</p><p>"It might be beautiful, but I promise you - " Gideon moved to close the chat window, because sometimes in order to get in the last word, you had to be like that " - it's not going to be pretty."</p><p>Which was, she felt, a totally 99th soon to be 101st level swordswoman thing to say.</p>
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